a/n someone raised my various uses of Mick's name, narration is not my strong point, but I find it really annoying and repetitive to continually refer to my character as Mick or he, all of the time, and since on the show they quite often use surnames and nicknames it's nice to be able to have those extra descriptions to play with. This chapters been written for a while, but I'm totally struggling with the rest, determined to finish though! Probably be another two or three till the end of the story and then probably a follow up chapter, I might have one or two more in this universe though, more angst stuff for Mick lol.

Lee had just finished running a brush over Harley and buckled on a fresh rug when she heard the sound of a truck pulling into the yard. Feeling foolish, but still spooked by the day's earlier events, she barely paused before heading back into the tack room for the rifle. Taking it from the gun locker, she checked and reloaded it. Carrying it felt stupid, but better safe than sorry, Lee made her way to the barn door and looked outside.

She cursed as she recognised it as Jenkins' truck, it was empty, with no sign of him. But the front door to the house now stood wide open, she was sure she'd pulled it too, so it was obvious where he'd gone. After shutting the dogs inside a stall, and taking care to stay out of sight of the house's windows, she crept across the drive to the open door.

Slipping her boots off before mounting the steps to the porch so as not to make a noise, she padded in socked feet up the wooden stairs to the side of the open front door, keeping low she risked a look inside. Mick was on the sofa still, though he'd swung his legs to the floor and was now facing Todd, talking to him. Neither of them had noticed her yet, she was to Todd's right and his focus was on Mick. Suddenly he raised his voice and became agitated, clearly whatever Mick was saying wasn't working. Swallowing down her fear she moved the rifle to her hip, relived that John had enjoyed teaching her to shoot and so had been thorough in their lessons, she silently offered up a prayer to him to give her some of his strength, and slowly entered the room.

"Todd, honey?" she swallowed, trying to wet her dry throat as they both turned to look at her. Mick looked shocked, wide eyed and angry, he clearly thought she shouldn't have come, but she ignored him, Todd was more important right now, she focused all of her attention on him. "Todd, please, you need to put that gun down now, ok?"

He shook his head, blinking, her appearance had clearly thrown him. "You won't shoot me," he sneered at her, dismissing her as a threat he gestured with the gun towards Mick, his voice rising again "I have to kill him, he spoiled everything!" he refocused on the agent.

He'd been too far away and the distraction had been too short for Mick to have risked tackling him. The hand gun had never moved away from his direction and with an injured leg he couldn't have moved fast enough. Mick knew he was running out of time, his only hope was that if Todd killed him, Lee would shoot Todd in time to save herself.

"Please Todd you need to put that gun down now, I won't ask you again!"

This time he ignored her, his attention completely on Mick and it was clear that he was preparing to shoot the agent.

"TODD!" She shouted, and for a moment Mick thought she'd lost it and he made to leap forward to try and save her somehow, even if it meant risking his own life, they were both dead anyway.

But he wasn't needed, she hadn't panicked, instead her plan had worked. The outburst had surprised Jenkins enough that he had swung the gun away from mick towards her. As soon as Rawson was out of danger, but before Todd's gun could reach her direction, she took the moment to fire, hitting him once, then twice in the chest, both near perfect shots. A look of shock crossed his face before the gun dropped from lifeless fingers and he crumpled to the floor. Life was gone seconds after his body hit it.

Lee just stood there unmoving, frozen, as Mick, his training kicking in, cleared his weapon and checked for a pulse, even though it was clear that there'd be none, the routine was a comfort and necessary.

That done he turned to Lee, making his way to her as best he could on his injured leg, and making sure he didn't get in front of the barrel, just in case, he reached her and gently took the gun.

"C'mon, I think we could both do with a drink" he smiled at her and she seemed to shake herself awake, focusing on him.

"He was going to kill you!"

"Yeah he was" he reached up and gently turned her face away from where it had returned to the body. "Hey darlin, look at me instead," he grinned cheekily "I'm much better looking" and a moment later as his teasing words registered she gave a ghost of a smile. "Now that's more like it, so am I going to have to find the coffee pot by myself or are you going to take pity on a poor injured and thirsty man?"

Still a bit zombie like she didn't resist as he draped an arm across her shoulders and they began to move towards the kitchen together.

Mick paused, "can I use your phone again? I'd better let my boss know what happened here," he looked back towards the body on the rug "he might get the wrong idea when he turns up and sees that truck and I'd hate for you to get trigger happy and shoot him too." He pulled a face at her.

He felt pleased as this got a small laugh from her and not so pleased since it also netted him an elbow to the ribs.

"I don't plan on making a habit of it, and in case you'd forgotten you're holding my gun!"

"I'm sure you could be very dangerous with a teaspoon. OW! Hey, injured man here." She'd elbowed him in the ribs, pulling a face, he couldn't help but be glad at the sign that she was holding it together.